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| My favorite--the Votive Church in Vienna...one of my former students said it reminded her of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, and I think that's perfect. |
If I had to pick one thing I say more in German than anything else, it would be "Ich weiß nicht," or I don't know. In Russian, the very first thing I learned to say was, "я не понимаю," or I don't understand, and that's a little bit different, isn't it? And in the difference between those two phrases is, at least to me, a picture of one thing I've really learned (the hard way!) in the last five years--the value of admitting that I don't know.
Let's get something straight: I like knowing stuff. I like very much to be right. And I'm very competitive. I wanted to be the best teacher, the best mother, the best wife...not just good or excellent at those things, but the best. I hate losing a game. I hate even more not knowing something. But in the last five years I've learned the value of facing up to what I don't know. And--isn't this true of all of us as we grow and mature, both as people and as Christians--the vast amount of what I don't know is pretty staggering. And I've learned the value of seeing myself in light of how Christ views me instead of how I view myself or how others view me.
When I started learning Russian, in fact the entire time I studied it, I was terrified that people would know I wasn't getting it. I don't understand became a way for me to fall back on the "I'm a language student" position, and ask people to slow down. I still say I don't understand, though I more often ask people to repeat something a little slower auf Deutsch. (I understand women better than men. Is that weird, do you think?) Because I was afraid of people knowing how little Russian I was actually grasping, I became even more scared of speaking to Russians. Because for sure, they would know. I can count to ten for you in several languages now, and that might impress an American who doesn't know those languages, but it's not going to impress a native speaker of those languages, right? So my inability to admit that I was struggling, that I didn't know the answer to something (or even what the question was) became a problem that inhibited me from making relationships. Now, I did get past this, and I have some tremendous relationships with Russian-speakers, both in Russia and the Czech Republic, so I'm not saying I was a total failure. But I might have gotten to those relationships faster and with more depth if I'd been willing to admit that I wasn't following all that was being taught to me. Why did I feel that way? Why was I so hesitant to admit that I was struggling? First, because I am an academic, and I didn't want people to know that I was struggling with something academic. Second, because I was comparing myself to those around me. And you know what? Many of them had been there 7,8, 10 years and spoke fluently. What in the world was I doing comparing myself to them? (And that, by the by, was not their fault. They weren't comparing themselves with me, after all. They knew firsthand how hard the language was.) The sin of this, the real damage I'd done to myself and my ability to really get the language was shown to me in one crystal-clear moment. Marc was in Russia, and I was in Prague, right after church one Sunday, standing with people I considered giants (still do) on the metro platform, waiting for the train. To one of them, I apologized for my poor Russian. (We were all working on a Russian church plant in Prague.) He looked at me and very, very pointedly said, "I've been speaking Russian for 15 years, Kellye. It took me a long time to learn it, and even longer to get good at it. Cut yourself a break. You don't need to apologize to me." He doesn't know it, but that one moment turned around my thinking and my practice of learning language. I speak as much German as I do now because he said that to me three years ago. I did cut myself a break. And I promised myself that I would admit when I didn't know something in order to learn better.
I make five thousand errors a day in German. I just got back a written exercise, something I spent hours putting together, and it is absolutely demolished with corrections. (Smile. Somewhere out there thousands of former AP/IB/AICE students are giggling just a little.) I speak to people on the bus, at markets, at the grocery, at the pharmacy--anywhere anyone will engage me. And you know what? Sometimes my accent is so American that they can't understand me. And it hurts. It really does. Because I am working my heart out here. But here's what I've learned. I can only do what I can do. I can only learn as fast or as much as I can learn. And everyone in Vienna with our company speaks better than I do. But God is God, whether I know the answer or even the question being asked. God is God when I can engage people well auf Deutsch, and He's still God when they look at me like I'm speaking some language from Mars. And the value of I don't know is this: when I don't know, He does. And when I admit that I don't know, I make it possible for someone to teach me. And having a teachable spirit and a teachable heart...well, that's worth any number of ridiculous language errors.
Of course, this has lots of applications in life, doesn't it? Not just language learning, but every day living, I think. The most important thing I ever said in a classroom (outside of "your English teacher loves you/is crazy about you/thinks you're terrific") was, "I don't know. I can look it up, but I don't know it off the top of my head." As we plan and pray for wisdom and strategy to reach this city (and any other city), I have to think that God honors the value of a broken heart that sighs, "Lord, I don't know. I don't know how to do it. Show me." In marriage, in parenting, in friendship...the freedom of admitting that we don't know something opens up incredible doors...for relationships to grow deeper as you find out together, for marriages to grow stronger as you rely upon one another, for parenting to become about what He knows and who He is instead of what we know and who we are. But all of that has to start with those three words: I don't know.
Well, lots to do before my Deutsch lesson today--laundry, groceries, dinner in the crockpot, more studying, of course--so I'd better run. Since this is Wednesday, and I likely won't write again this week, I would ask that you pray for my parents and sisters and I (and, of course, our families) on Friday, as my Daddy goes in for surgery to remove a tumor. European friends, they won't start until about 4 in the afternoon our time on Friday. But if you would say a quick prayer for him, his doctors, his family, his health...we would all count it a blessing. Thanks for that. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you know (and don't have to learn the hard way) the value of admitting what you don't know and relying on the One who knows everything, and that you are enjoying a gorgeous fall day where you are, too. Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye
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